


The Sound A Clock Makes

by Achilles1011



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Multi, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achilles1011/pseuds/Achilles1011
Summary: Tick-tock, tick-tock goes the clock. It’s a sound we all hear from birth to death marking the passage of time and driving our lives. It was one a sound Rose Tyler heard too, until someone took hold of her hand and told her to run.





	The Sound A Clock Makes

**Author's Note:**

> Based on one of the the drabble prompt given by timepetalsprompts for this week: The sound of a clock. 
> 
> I think it may have gone a little over drabble length... oops.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_

The sound a clock makes. Something everyone hears, from the time they are born until the time they die.

Her life had been like any other, moving to the rhythm of the familiar sound. Wake-up, go to work, after maybe see Shireen or go down to the pub with Mickey, and then back to her flat with her mother.

Every day the same, driven by that sound. 

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_

Until one day an amazing, absolutely mad alien took her hand and said “Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life!”

Suddenly the sound of a clock, marking the passage of her humdrum life, had no meaning. She lived in a time-machine that could go to anywhere and be anywhen. Everyday of her life was different now, no more boring day-after-day working in Heinrichs, now she could go to the year five billion in the future, or meet Charles Dickens in the past.

Still the sound of the clock followed her, now a countdown, marking the passage of her days with her first Doctor, and then her second. It counted the moments she’d have, the memories she’d make, and the life she would live beside them.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_

When she had looked into time itself, when the knowledge of all that is, all that was, and all that ever could be had flowed through her she could hear the sounds of clocks. 

She could hear the stopped clock of the man who should never be and made it tick again. She could feel the vibrations that were defined the seconds passing and she divided them.

Most importantly she could hear the clock counting her own time, and she stopped it.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock._

The sound of a clock counted the seconds of her life, filling up instead of running out, with the moments that passed her by so quickly she didn’t even notice until they were gone. It had counted down the time it took for her to get to know the Doctor, to forge a friendship, and to fall in love. Now it counted the moments which filled their relationship, the maybes, the could bees, the what-ifs, the love, and the longing.  

The sound though wasn’t just the passage of time, it was also in the rhythm of the Doctor’s heartbeats. It was a rhythm she could feel tapping out its beat against her chest when the Doctor pulled her close. It was the sound she remembered when Nine’s hour faded, and the clock struck Ten, and when the hour should have changed to Eleven but never did, at least not with her. It was the sound she’d fallen asleep to echoing in her ear and under her palm. It was the rhythm of their breathes as they made love. It filled every moment, every memory, every heart beat that echoed in her chest when they were separated.

It was the sound she remembers when two became one.

But it was a sound she’d stopped living by.

 _Tick-tock, tick-tock_

It was the sound she lived her life by again, this time counting out the screams on a new life, the laughter of children, the high-pitched squeals of joy, the sobs of sadness, the awe, the wonder, and the joy. It marked the passage of time; of the happiness and the sadness of her life with her husband, _her_ Doctor.

She watched though as time run out, as the people around her grew old, as they withered and died. Her clock remaining still, frozen in the moment between the tick and the tock.

_Tick-tock, Tick-tock_

It is the sound a clock makes as it progressed around its circle, counting from midnight to noon, noon to midnight, in a never-ending cycle, moving between one and twelve over and over.

Without her the clock struck Eleven, the one that should have been the last, but as midnight drew near an impossible girl did an impossible thing and the clock struck Twelve.

Then as the Twelfth hour waned the impossible was done again twice over, the clock struck Thirteen and Rose came back.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_

Now the sound of the clock marks the passage of the time as it should have always been. It marks the breathes they take, the love and the laughter, the wonder and awe, the joy and the sadness, the life and death.

It marks the passage of the Doctor and Rose Tyler in the Tardis, just as it should be.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock_

“Rose?” A sleep heavy voice mumbled from above her, “you alright?”

“Yeah,” she replied smiling as she lifted her head off the Doctor’s shoulder, “just listening to the sound of the clock.”

The Doctor didn’t say anything just smiled at her as she pressed a sleepy kiss to her forehead, squeezing Rose a little bit closer as the faint sound of the ticking clock lulled her to sleep.


End file.
